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OAHUILA. 



BY THOMAS K klNE. 



READ BEFORE THE AIEEICAU PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, lANUAEY 19, 1877. 



Coahwila. 
By Thomas L. Kane. 

{Rend before the Auierlran. Philosophical Society, Jiinuiiry IV), 1877.) 

I. GEOGRAPHICAL. 

I have recently returned from a tliree months' excursion into Northern 
Mexico. I went hy rail to near San Antonio, Texas ; from there took my 
own and government servants' wagons and nmle teams. I was in no 
hurry, carried a party of intelligent friends with me ;is observers, and en- 
joyed advantages fer seeing the country and its peopli' which do not com- 
monly fall to the lot of travelers. 

I spent most of my time in Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. After visiting 
the country noi'th-west of Piedras Negras, I looked up the dilTerent passes 
of the Sierra Sliuli'e which appeared inviting for railroad purposes from 
below Santa Rosa to La Rinconada. Finding Saltillo closely invested by 
Trevino, I crossed from the Saltillo road to Montei-ey, and thence retnrned 
to San Antonio via Mier and Laredo. I expect to have time soon to pre- 
pare a geographical paper and maps for the Transactions of the Society. I 
shall ask their patience this evening for the conununication of a fev/ facts 
not undeserving their notice. 

1 have draAvn upon the blackboard, upon an enlarged scale, the leading 
features of Golton's latest Maji of Mexico. I would ask your attention first 
to the contrast presented by the Rio Bravo to the otJier rivers of Southern 
Texas and Mexico. These are all greatly less conspicuous. They are 
seen ,;o tlow but short distances from their sources to the Gulf of Mexico. 
The Bravo or Grande del Norte, on the other hand, cuts a more important 
figure on the map, outdoing, apparently, the others put together. It is of 
much greater length and volume, and the reason is' obvious. 

By the contour lines, where you observe my eifort to make hatchings 
with the yellow chalk, I indicate in a general way the course of the high 
land which is customarily spoken of as the East Branch of the Sierra 
Madre. From San Luis Potosi, here, (A) I hav^e drawn the so-called 
Sieri'a :i^^ fxtendin!;: to the edge of the plain watered 1)y the Rio Grande 
(B). It sinks as it proceeds uoi-tlt, until here, you see, only one mass of 
mountai)! north of Satita Rosa, I have represented it as entirely disap- 
pearing. 

W(- have ' |ii;,'ii;iiii>!iof the greatness of the only Mexican great 

rivtr, the Ri-. ■ .,. ,e. Tin great river, you remark, rises in the interioi", 
more than half way across the continent, and it flows all this way as many 
as 1800 miles, to the Gulf; because no mountain obstacle is offered to its 
progress. It finds what might be regarded as a vast Pass where the ' ' Sierra" 
lias gone under. It is true (this is a parenthesis for our Secretary*) that 

* Prof. J. P. Lesley, Chief of the Gefilogical Survey of Pennsj'lvania, &c., <fcc., 
present hs one of the Secretaries of the Society 



hero lu; it is deliccted, and, ouciliuiu to im-ai utiiilogical onlcis, turns nearly 
at right angles, and works along at disadvantage for some distance, until 
it hits this seeming continuation of the valley of the Pecos (b). Bnt it is 
soon observed endeavoring to resume its direct forthright, and before long 
is found in line with itself, so to speak, adopting the course of the valley of 
the Salado (c d). The Salado, I will also halt to point out, runs parallel 
to a certain line of heights which has been recommended as the natural 
boundary line between the United States and tlie Norili-east Provinces of 
Mexico (CD). 

Reflei-ting on the significance of such a fact as the Rio Grande, you per- 
ceive how natural a thing it was for me to ask myself: Why should not a 
new route for a transcontinental rail way be discovered here — not far from 
the path of the great water way — through upper Mexico V This led me to 
examine, as I have said, the different j)asses or depressions of the mis- 
named Sierra, furnishing inclines leading up to the elevation of the Clreat 
Table. I looked for them into or through the Sierra, it is true, but com- 
paratively near the river, where its elevation is diminished, and what is 
left of it is broken up. I am rewarded by having found two, and probably 
three. Passes, preferable to those heretofore recommended to the Engineer. 

I am positive now that I can indicate the true line for the railroad, south 
of the Union Pacific, from the United States to the Pacific Ocean ; and the 
best of it is that the short cut, B F, is the one which provides the most 
moderiite gradients. From San Antonio, as your starting point, make your 
shorte>t cut for IMazatlan, and you Avill not be very far from either of these 
two lines. 

The routes described in this paper both pass through the rich agricul- 
tural Laguna country, and through the richer Durango mining one, and 
are both singularly cheap of construction. Neither of them is deflected 
noticeably from the straight line, except as the Pacific is approa(-hed, where, 
to avoid engineering obstacles (less expensive ones, though, than those 
which the California Central R. R. has overcome), 1 recommend turning 
down into the State of Jalisco, through the northern part of tlie District of 
Tepic. There tlie Sierra Xevada, E F, coming from the noilh west, lowers 
as the East Branch of the Sierra Madre does in Northern Coahuila. To 
obtain a gentle slope Avithout paying for it, I do not attack, but flank the 
Snowy Range. 

Next in interest to these inter oceanic railroad data (perhaps, too, after 
certain military questions unavoidably associated with the same) I should, 
perhaps, advert to the results of a visit to the country below the upper 
bend of the Rio Bravo, marked on the maps as Terreno Desconocido and 
Territorio Non Explorado. I thought it would be a rare field for oiiginal 
exploration, but it proved to have been well known to the Spaniards, who 
have left roads, military earthworks, mineral shafts, and other evidences 
of their presence there. The names of old Spanish settlements might be 
sprinkled over all this unoccupied space (x to y, and v to z). The correc- 
tion of such an error as this should appear at least in our children's school 



3 

utilises. I could occup}^ the evening in enumeratjDg nUiers:. l)m will close 
with citing two hardly less striking. Tlie Bi'Lun, ile Mapinii, here, wluch 
covers so large a space on the maps, should properly be restricted to a 
more limited area, north of the town of jVLapirai, Mapimi, an old Spanish 
mining town, gives its name to a mountain near it, shaped somewhat like 
a big purse ( Hispauice Bulson). It appears to have been an after thought 
with geographers to lay down a figure of this shape, large enough to in- 
clude a great reach of desert* plain. A siniilar coirection should lie made 
for the Bar rial de la Paila, which is quite a narrow stretch of sterile plain 
lying on the west side of the Sierra de la Paila. 

■»•?.-** * ■:;• * * 

II. ETHNOLOGICAL. 

After a review i»f Humboldt's work in New Spain, closing with a culo- 
gium oil llic great Explorer's thoroughness, General Kane proceeded : 

But Alexander von Humboldt did not visit the ISTorthern Provinces of 
Mexico. And T may say anothej' thing without irreverence , he Avas not 
an ethirologist. In Spanish Americ:), loo, the persons wdio gave him most 
information in Natural History were priests or members of religions oj'ders 
in the Roman Catholic Church. The minds of sincere persons in that com- 
munion have ever been fettered by the dogma that " God hath made of one 
blood all the nations of the earth," and they have seldom pursued ethno- 
logical research with zeal, never M-ith impartiality. 

I am sure that I do not overrate the value of Northern Mexico as a field 
for ethnological stud}-. I can say emphatically of it that in this respect it 
is terreno descwiocido ; territoric non explorado. 

It Avill be p8rt,ieul:irly interesting to us to seek the solution there of cer- 
tain Historical Problems which have baffled our investigations. 

In the Old AVorld we have not been able to divest ourselves of the bias 
arising from our being in some manner or other parties to the discussion of 
historical questions. Each specimen of us belongs to some particular race 
or mixture of races, and, whether he has had a grandfather or not to take 
a pride in, if his self-consciousness but carries him back a single generation, 
he unites in feeling v>-ith those whom lie thinks most like himself in mis- 
taking what they accept as History for Science. Most of us in fact have a 
direct political o]- religious interest or feeling involved in our preference for 
deciding questions by the bulletin or historical pamphlet, rather than by the 
scalpel and craniological caliper. Prejudice should blind us less in Mexico. 
If we love our Dutch or Scotch, and hate our ancestral Spanish enemies, we 
cannot help unduly praising our Orange-Nassaus, and hating our Alvas ; 
while we do not care enough to cheat much regarding the^respective merits 
of the folloAvers of Coanocotzinf or Ixtlilxochitl|. An imputation on the 
standing of the Trinity, or the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, may 
wound our feelings ; we care nothing for theories ascribing greater or le^is 
exaltation to the gods Texcatlipoco,§ or Cu-at-li-cu e. || 

* Desierto, Desert, not necessarily meaning uninhabitable desert. 

t Texeocau eneiiij^ of Cortes. tTexcocan friend of Coilfe. 

ji Of Heaven. 'J Of Flowers. 



In Noriliern Mexico, races have livcfl of the irreatest vaiietj' of osteo- 
logical structure. They have left, and they are now depositing in profusion, 
most interesting crania, simple and composite. Nowhere probably in the 
world are so great a number of healthy, full grown youths, of known habi- 
tat and pedigree, meeting with violent deaths, and leaving their bones at 
the command of the collector. 

Over Northern Mexico, and through it, in times bygone, have passed suc- 
cessive migrations of races, as remarkable as those which have occurred in 
our own historical period in Asia and in Europe. 

And. alas, of the conquest of the weak by the strong, of that which you 
and I, Mr. President, if alone, must maintain to be the Survival of the Un- 
fittest, of the conquest of peaceful, industrious and civilized races by war- 
like ones, Mexico affords us at least two distinct and notable examples. 
Not less than two great invasions have proceeded directly fiom Northern 
Mexico, or passed through it. All the American conquerors of Central 
:Mexico that we know of came from the North. We can study them in 
Northern Mexico as they existed before they removed South. It is an im- 
portant point I make, tliat our researches in Mexico maybe conducted in a 
strictly scientitic spirit, free from the disturbing influences of partisan liter- 
ature. — Of what nation is not the literature without force, if its tone is not 
(regarded in a philosophical sense) — provincial and partisan? 

Again, the singularly favorable political anarchy noM prevailing in 
Northern Mexico should be of the greatest service to the student. Seventy 
years ago the Spaniards governed New Spain. Not only their military sway 
(though, as I have intimated, it surprises the traveler every day how far 
out into the North they carried their military roads, their presidios, soldiers 
and cannon), but the dominion also of their laws prevailed, and their social 
customs, with their language and religion. Since the removal of the forces 
which maintained law and order, the whole of this regime has ended, oris 
coming to an end. The mental and moral charac eristics of each native 
stock are seen to be re-asserting themselves. You can detect, with corre- 
sponding physiological varieties of structure, what manners the several 
species, sub species and varieties were originally prone to, Avhat laws natu- 
rally suited them, what religion. In truth, straight out before your face, 
and inconveniently to the purpose if you are in their way, they disclose 
Avhat other species of men they are predestined to hate, and refuse most 
ferociously to live with on terms of amity. 

To a certain extent an invading movement from the North upon more 
Soutliern Mexico is going on at this moment. I had a peculiarly favorable 
opportunity for witnessing an instance of its operation on a small scale. 

I obtained an invitation at Piedras Negras to accompany the column of 
Government troops which moved upon Monclova and San Buenaventura 
in November last, and I made the most of my good fortune. 

I had Don Pedro Valdes. the Military Governor of the district of the Rio 
Gri. nde, and Colonel Ferdinand Montragon, his second in command, with 
me all xXxg way. As far as Monclova mj' mess, my tent, my ambulance 



were theirs ; one or other of them hardly left my sight. They l-i;new per- 
sonally a large number of their soldiers ; whenever any one attracted my 
attention as a subject of study, and they could not answer my questions 
regarding his name, birthplace and genealogy, they ordered him up to 
speak for himself. They became honestly interested in some of my eth- 
nological guesses, which they esteemed shrewd, and, I honestly believe, 
went beyond politeness in giving extension to my inquiries. I think I 
pretty faithfully studied over 300 equestrian men ; nearly all who were not 
of native Indian blood being Mestizo. Should I not at some future|day recur to 
this subject, let me dispose of it by saying that, with traces of nearly every 
race whose abode has been the Iberian Peninsula, Basque, Jew, Zingaro 
even, the predominant Spanish element apparently was Andalusiar;. I 
could not at all guess ho^\' many kinds of native Mexican entered into the 
medley. My companions could distinguish many more than I could. A 
captain from near Bustamente, where there is an interesting ancient colony of 
them, could point out every Tlascalan in the crowd. But this I did see plainly 
myself, a large majority of the fighting riders Avere of the stamp of our 
own South-western warlike Iiidians. I am very familiar with the physiog- 
nomical characteristics of the Arrapahoe, Kickapoo (Qu. chica puta'?), I'te 
and Sonora Apache. I lived some time among the Shoshones, and may be 
trusted to detect the Comanche wherever it occurs. I found the Comanche 
through Valdes' command in force. 

The small-sized photographs Avliicli I place on the table were selected by 
me, chiefly from an army officer's collection, as being striking likenesses of 
men termed Mexicans, and regularlv enrolled as members of Valdes' 
National Guard. If they were dressed up in the pictures as Cia•istian;^, I 
have no doubt the subjects and their friends would liave great pleasure in 
recognizing them. On the fiice of eacli photograph you will find the Indian 
name and tribe, on the back the Jilexican. 

The other photographs support views advanced by me in former, now 
nearly forgotten, communications.* The notes endorsed upon them \\in I 
think repay ])erusal. 

a. Affords an interesting examfile of Atavism : the b((Gk leap, as the 
Spanish tern\ it. The mother, a Mexican ^voman Avhose family style 
thenrselves Spanish, acknowledging only one sixteenth of Indian blood, is 
convicted of the Sambo or Chino liy its reappearance in her daughter, an 
engaging and estimable young lady who is quite a dark mulatto. Fig 1. 
Her sisters, 2, 4, 5, 6 exhaust the shades of the segar box. 

b. and c. Exemplify strikingl}'- the persistence of the type. The Ger- 
man girls in b. were captives from their j'outh, very hardly used up to the 

*()ii Rank and Mp.rit cleponding on linea'^o among certain (North American) 
Indian Tribes. isiT. 

Lavater -f- Da'^uerre. 1848. Replies to Xott and Gliddon. 18r)U-18r)2. 

Differences in the Results of Emancipation in the Britisii AVest Indies corres- 
ponding to differences of Race observed there. 18oH. 

Idiosyncrasies of the Lueumis Gangas and other Bozales in t'uba. 1857. 

The Application of Ethno-Physiognomy made by Mr. H. H. Slatter. 18.11). 



6 

age of pubert}', when tlicy were rescued, c. was more tenderly nurtured, 
being a head chiefs favorite daughter. They are tame ; she lemains wild 
—/era mtturce. 

d. A family of Gei-man descent, exposed as partly C'hino Mexican. The 
bony framework of the subjects not having been modified : the physiog- 
nomy, due to the integuments, is common to all the children, but the elder 
sister's face (2i is darkened by a shade of pigment in the mucous coat. In 
1. and 4. it is said to be detectable in tlic luna. 

The working of our little Invasion was about this : Valdes" ai'my was 
made up, certainly more than half of it, of m^n of Northern Indian blood. 
They were moving south. Some of tliem might return, perhaps not 
many. When the companj^ of Sarago.«sa was marched off from that place, 
I saw a crowd of their women assembled to weep and wail over them in 
half Indian style, as if it were about to i)rove their last farewell. Other 
recruits who had left the pueblo under similar auspices had not returned. 
Their fate had been to die in battle, or of disease, or of the effects of 
wounds and exposure — or to embrace permanently the military career, in 
which ca.se the elite of thetn found emi)loyment as regulars in the 
City of Mexico, or elsewhere in the province's not far from tlie National 
Capital. The average man thus, after directly killing or cojitributing by 
imi)overishment to starve a giv^en number of the more industrious and 
peaceable members of races of the South, would become a southern resi- 
dent, and leave desci'ndants of his own. South, who would be half North- 
ern and half Southern ; that is, it might l)e. half warlike and lazy, half 
industrious and inoffensive. 

Esteeming it a compliment to have hjen invited to express my opinions 
upon the political condition of Mexico at this interesting juncture, I will 
not consider it beneath the dignit}' of Science to notice the subject from an 
Ethnological point of view. 

The North, as well as the rest of Mexico, presents a clearl_v marked case ot 
Arrkstei) National Development. The natural tendency of the different 
populatit)ns of Mexico to unite in one having been interfered with three cen- 
turies and a half ago bv an outside pressure, and this pressure having been 
withdra^vn, its etfect upon the national life is 7iow seen to have been unfav- 
orable. Not only the political health, but, to persevere in the use of my fig- 
ure, the existence itself of Mexico as a nation is menaced. The thoughtful 
observer is left in doubt whether, for the welfare of the people of Mexico, 
a synthetic or a further analytic treatment of their confederacj' is most de- 
manded. The former may be premature, the latter, now going <m so 
rapidly, risks being carried too far. Many honest tliinkers are of opinion 
that it would be beneficent to restore the foreign pressure, or an equivalent 
for it. In my opinion it would be but a I'eproduction of the original evil. 

With your indulgence I will enlarge upon this theme, for brevity and to 
avoid confusion .soliciting 3'ou to restrict the a])plication of my remarks of 
a general nature to the Central Table Lands, of which we may popularly 
speak with least inaccuracy as Mexico. 



7 

At the epoch when the Wars of the Roses, Welsh Avars und Scotcli wnrs 
were preparing for Great Britain a United England ; when the various ele- 
ments already united as Grascons, Bretons, Picards, Normans were con- 
tending which should form tlie future Franco ; when. — less eft'ectually as it 
has proved, because the ethnological differences involved were greater, — the 
different populations of Spain and Aragon, Murcia and Granada were fight- 
ing out whether they should absorb or be absorbed in the kingdoms of 
Castile and Leon, the different native tribes of Mexico were at the same 
work in their own way. 

They were very numerous. Geiger says, "There were at the time of 
the conquest and there are now, more thou thirty tlifFerent races, speaking 
as many different languages and marked by disti active peculiarities." (p. 
317.) 

Our standard authority Humboldt's remarks are, "The great variety of 
languages still spoken in the Kingdom of Mexico proves a great variety of 
races and origin. The number of these languages exceeds twenty, of 
which fourteen have grammars and dictionaries toleral)ly complete. * * * 
It appears that the raosi pari of these languages, far from being dialects of 
the same (as some authors have talsely advanced), are at least as different 
from one another as the Greek and the German, or the French and the 
Polish." 

Humboldt mentions the Mexican, Otomite, Tarasco, Zapoteco, Misteco, 
Maya, Totonac, Popolouc, Matla/.ing, Huastec, Mixed, Caciuiquel, Tarau- 
mar, Tepehuan and Cora. To these, the Mazahua, Huavc, Serrano, — and, 
well, say a dozen others may safely be added. How many of these arc 
derived from the primitive NahuatL neither this, nor in fact any other 
abstruse philological question, am I qualified to discuss. Enough here that 
my own observations lead me to place the number of separate tribal 
societies very high. But at the date of the Spanish conquest they were in 
a fair Avay of coalescing. With various ins and outs, and ups and 
downs, there can be no doubt that a ]>rocess of C(insolidation was going on 
in Mexico through thetliirteeutli, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, coj;res- 
ponding to that observable in Europe during the same period. 

The Tpltecans evidently had absorbed many tribes before they were suc- 
ceeded by the Chichimecas, wh.ose own absorptions constituted the mon- 
archy of Te/fuco. Tacuba or Tlacopan had a similar history. So had the 
Aztec Kingdom or Empire, with wh.ose liistorj" we are perhaps most 
familiar, the one ruled by the Montezumas. The original Aztecan divisions 
of Tlaltelolcos and Tenuchcas are mentioned to tha traveler at this day, 
when his guide points out tiie ground they severally occupied upon the site 
of the present city of Mexico. These only united to form the Mexican 
monarchy in 14o8. But liy tli ■ bcgiimi u^' of the sixteenth century, Tlacopan, 
Tezcoco and Aztecan Mexico were practicalh^ united in one Confederacy. 
I cannot see how there is any room for question that the League had 
become a single nation, powerful enough to absoi'b all minor ones — outside 
of the Tarascos, and those Guastecos, who in Tamaulipas, under Cortina, 



8 

are giving Texas so much trouble at this time. There survived, it is true, 
a few small independent nationalities. There was the priestly government 
of Oholula, and the moderately warlike kingdom of Acnlhuucan, and the 
Republic of Huexotzingo, and ilu- stronger Republic of Tlascala, which 
was fighting for its independence against overpowering odds, when Cortez 
arrived barely in time to save it Mr. Prescott has no authority for saying 
that the more widely the Aztec Empire was exiended. the weaker it be- 
came. On the contrary, Mexico, under Montezuma II was as much a 
homogeneous nation between the Atlantic and Pacific for ten degrees «>f 
latitude, as Spain was then from the Mediterranean to the Pyrenees ; more 
than England was from the Channel to the Highlands of Scotland. 

I like to use dates when I can. In Europe we have tolO as the year of the 
accession of Charles V in Germany. Tiiree j'ears before, the Fleming had 
become King of Spain. Four years before, Francis the First had become 
King of France. Ten years before, Henry the Eighth had ascended the 
throne of England. But in the .spring of ir)l9 Hernando Cortez wooed 
his Malinche Marina in Tabasco and sailed with her to Vera Cruz. He 
entered the City of Mexico a conqueror, August 13, 1521. 

With the effect of the European element introduced by Cortez you are 
familiar. The complete disintegration of all indigenous national com- 
binations went with the extension over the Grand ^lesa of the Spanish 
arms, laws, religious and social usages. We may safely speak of the 
Spanish rule as having continued absolute for more than two hundred 
years. 

When, towards the close of the last c-eutury, the etiinological differences 
prevailing in Spain asserted themselves anarchically there, surprise is ex- 
pressed at the slowness Avhich her colonists evinced in throw ing off the 
yoke. It was an uphill business in Mexico, and was managed there in the 
old time Spanish way — by men almost exclusively of Spanish blood. 
Their movement was not apprehended by themselves to be anarchical. 
They, at least thought that their cause was that of order, union and re- 
ligion. 

Hidalgo was a Spanish curate. Take his date as 1810 He was cai;ght 
(where I came near coming to grief myself) at Bajan, in Coaluiila, March 
the 21st, 1811, and shot the following Isf of August. 

Mati\moros, the curate of Jantetelco, was shot August the 3d, 1814, 
Curate Morelos, December 21st, 1815, and Mina, November 11, 1817. 
Yturbidc proclaimed the Plan of Iguala February 14, 1821, and concluded 
the Tratados de Cordoba with Don Juan O'Donoju, September 27, 1821. 
Everyone of tliese champions of indcpendfrnct^ except Morelos, was clear 
Spanish, and the cry of the triumphant liberating army of the Three Guar- 
antees I believe faithfullj* expressed the feeling of what was then still 
subsisting a Mexican Nation. The motto was borne on the tri-colored flag 
which the nation united in adopting. It was "Religion, Union and Inde- 
pendence." 

Naturally we Americans have a prejudice against Yturbidc because he 



9 

had himself crowued Emperor iii a cathedral, aud perhaps because his 
family lived among us in their adversity, making themselves too 
familiar with us, particularly here in Philadelphia. But there was prob- 
ably a good deal in Don Agustin before his head was turned. He had 
some excellent and faithful men, too ; and under him, or some of these, his 
nation, I think, might have hammered its music out. In my judgment, the 
Mexicaushave always acted foolishly in imitating ourselves and the French. 
Their establishment of a Federal Government, October 4, 1824, with a 
constitution affecting to be more or less a copy of our - iwn inconsistent bi- 
nate one, v, 'is a mistake. But in the end, under it, or something like it, they 
could possibly liave miulc tilings work. But they have never liad a fair 
chance. Their country ■\^'as too rich to be let alone. 

Before they rnuld set tliciv first government in running tu'der, foreign 
invasioii, and tlireats of foreign invasion, compelled them to pay exclusive 
attention to their foreign instead of their domestic ;vLTairs. It threw mto 
tlie backgroimd men of learning and men of moral worth, and brought 
forward the more brutal sort — the hombres de armas — men of the horse 
and of the sword — the curses of Mexico. These men were required to de- 
fend the people from those who should have given them common interests, 
but only gave them a common enemy. 

In<lulge me, if \o\\ please, in a little more chronology. 

The gravest of Mexican errors, the expulsion of the Gachupinas, was 
brought on directly by the threat of Spanish invasion. 

Not a year after the last Spanish troops embarked from Vera Cruz, No- 
vember 18, 1835, the Padre Arenas conspiracy was under weigh. 

Barradas' expedition actually landed in 1829. 

Our colonizati(m of Texas, under Stephen Austin, had begun early in 
1828. Edwards' effort at revolution came off there, if I remember, the 
j'ear before. 

In 1832 our Texaus united with Santa Anna in pronouncing against the 
government of Bustaniante, and defeated the Mexican troops with loss. In 
18B3 they separated from Coahuila. 

In 1835 and 1836- they —I had better say ice — fought the Mexicans in 
Texas. We — our Government — formally acknowledged Texan independ- 
ence in 1837. 

18-10 is the date of Ben McCulloch's Texan Ranger fight. 

li-'il, I.s-iS, 1843 are the dates of our expeditions against Santa Fe and 
Mier. 

In 1844 President Tyler concluded his Treaty of Annexation with the 
Texan Commissioners. We admitted Texas into the Union December 27, 
1845 ; fought our battles south of the Rio Grande in 1846-1847 ; patched 
up our so-called peace in 1848. 

We were hardly done with the Mexicans then before the French were 
at them a second time with their Redamacion de los Pasteles — "their Pie 
Claims," as the Mexicans call them. I omitted to mention that in 1837, at 
the time when we acknowledged the independence of Texas, France was 



10 

bullying Mexk-o about thesis Pasteles— claiming damages for pastry-cook's 
trays and tlie like, to the tune of $000,000. In 183?^ she had shown us, 
with a fleet of eleven vessels, how easy it was to humble Mexican national 
pride, by taking the old fortress of San Juan d'UUoa. Hoav France went 
oil after this, giving the Mexicans no peace, is the history so familiar to us 
i>f the famous Intervention. 

The Mexicans liad France, S]nhx and England together upon their backs 
by 1861. Bazaiiie did not evacuate Mexico till 1867. 

Certain political wounds are too green for me to say what I think of the 
course adopted l»v the United States after tliis. 

I am unfortunate enough to entertain the conviction that in morals we 
are responsible f(jr a great deal of the wrong which has been done. Break- 
ing off abruptly, I should beg you to pardon my apparently meaningless 
digression. I am not confident that I have made out my case, but I felt 
bound to put in a plea for my Mexican friends who appear to you inex- 
cusablj- engaged in the business of national suicide. 

So very few of our good men have ever met them, the Mexican good men 
and gentlemen, when the Erinnides were not pursuing them! I stand almost 
alone in declaring that I know them as uniformly courteous, and generous, 
and brave — worthy to be the sons of mothers wlio, rich and poor, gentle 
and simple, afford the world some of its fairest examples of devoted ten- 
derness and saintly pietj-. — Admit that they seem to be given over to the 
Furies. If they deserve our censtxre, they are entitled to our pity. 

This said, I will return to what I think indisputably true. The history 
of Mexico for the last half century is that of the resolution of a population 
more and more into its constituent elements. The different races have 
asserted themselves, or have been used by the various politic^ians to enforce 
their pretensions. Some of these fellows have been strongly backed, per- 
haps by the remnant of a former ancient confederacj- or luiion of several 
tribes having similar ethnological characteristics ; otliershave appealed onlj- 
to the interests of single tribes or half tribes, as insignificant as the following of 
the ten-vole repeater who traffics for office on our State House Row. The 
same phenomenon, the thought occurs to one, is seen in every countrj', 
but it looks uglier where it is associated with the direct employment ot 
physical force. Rimning up from Acupulco, in 1857, I saw "the 
Southern Tiger " Alvarez. A straight-limbed old Indian — not a trace of 
Spanish was discernible in him or any of the squaAvs decked in French 
dresses who constituted his dusk}' harem. King of Guerrero his flatterers 
called him. Before the Oon(piest he would probably have been King of 
]\Iichoacan. He might then have fought a Moctezuma. In our times he 
fought and overtime a Santa Anna. 

Alvarez would have been at either epoch neither more nor less than 
Head Chief of Tarascos. 

I will take a second example from the other extremity of the Repu})lic. 
Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico is another renowned nursery and cradle 
of Revolutions. It is a unit in politics. If a IMejia has it, he is as sure of 



11 

his following as a Bayard in a southern county of Delaware. Only, its 
warriors do not tnrn out to vote. They follow him with horses and arms, 
^ind expect him to supply them with ammunition. Tamaulipas is popu- 
larly spoken of as a State. It is J-egularly divided into three districts — del 
Norte, del Centre, del Sur— and sends its nominal representatives often to 
the Federal Capital. But it is nothing more nor less than the old country 
of the Guastecos, which was imperfectly subdued, even by the Spaniards 
in their day. And Tamaulipas too has its Head Chief now, a Major 
General, and Lieutenant General, and Excellency, Governor Supreme, and 
so forth — Cortina. And Cortina is all and singular, gold lace and epau- 
lettes included, justjxbout the blood thirstiest savage existing on the Con- 
tinent. 

What have we to study in Mexico ethnologically, besides the descendants 
of the primitive inhabitants? The Gachupinas? They are better studied 
in the land of their derivation. What else then for the study of the 
ethnologist in Mexico? Alas! The Mixtures. Nowhere is there presented 
a greater A^ariety of these than in Mexico. Every proportion of every 
variety of Spaniard ; with every proportion of Indian, Mediterranean 
man, Moor and Negro. Nothing can be more distasteful to the inquirer 
who desires a simple study, than the variety of mental and moral charac- 
tei'istics which we find in the Mestizoes is associated with their diversity of 
physical constitution. 

Among the mixed breeds the difterence in the proportion of the charac- 
teristics derived from the different ancestors introduces anarcliy into social 
circles, into the family itself. The appetites, the passions, the powers, the 
higher aspirations of one child are impatient of are directly hostile to those 
which contribute in a different proportion to form the character of another. 
Here tiien, among the people of mixed breed is the Debatable Ground, the 
lield for the intrigues and machinations of the designing politician. The 
typical politician of Mexico is himself the result of a mixture. He is rest- 
less, because the different elements in liim vary his desires and aspirations. 
They are not the same at diffierent periods of his life, are modified by the 
company he is keeping. He is inconsistent, when the medium in which he 
lives undergoes change. He lies, perhaps for the same reason that he is in- 
consistent. He is deliberately perfidious even, and then is the last man on 
earth to know how little he is to lilame for being so. Who is to blame for 
his ferocity combined Avith s^entleness, for his mingled generosity and 
ravin, his instincts of higli honor united with deceit ; yes, with revolting 
treachery. The answer is, the man who is responsible for his being the mixed 
man that he is ; the Spaniard who- was his ancestor is the culprit, who 
basely mated with the Indian woman from whom the Indian part of him 
is derived. 

AVe have a distinguished Professor of Princeton proposed for membership 
to-night, whose ripe scholarship the Society will doubtless honor with the 
trilnite of an election. There are members of the Society on the floor Ijefore 
me who l.ielieve (and they are entitled to their belief, though it is not my own) 



12 

that there is an Ultimate Philosop/iy which will harmonize all knowledge 
with Religion. Indeed, I know that there is one, my valued friend, who 
goes so far as to entertain the conviction that Theology is entitled to be 
ranked among the Exact Sciences. To such I would turn, and. adopting the 
terminolog}' of that imposing study, would indicate the value of Northern 
Coahuila as a Hell where we can study faithfully what Sin means. We 
need be at no loss there for examples, for proofs that the sins of the fathers 
are visited upon the children — and that, beyond the tiiird and fourth gi-ner- 
ations. 

The splendid contiueror still da/.zles our eyes as he flashes across the 
page of history. We reali/.e how chiquard it seemed to many a young Si>an- 
ish noble of ])ure blood to follow in the footsteps of Hernando Cortez, 
to carry about or be carried about l)_y, to lead or be led astray by his 
Malinche — but we have come down to tlie end of that nice business. The 
dreadful end 1 The savage Indian would not now be re-asserting his 
savage cliaracteristics, but for the aid lent him by the Devil working through 
the illegitimate descendant of tlie Spaniard. There is no mistaking it ; it 
is the lied Savage — the old Adam — terra rubra there, out upon the warpath. 
The Spanish military rule first overthrown, he has subverted the civil 
order which it sustained. For the law which the Spanish introduced la 
stately system not unworthy of its Latin origin) he prefers, perhaps on the 
way to re-introduce ancient barbarous and local usages, the momentary 
will of the last chief under whom he has fought as a brave i bravo) in battle. 
The language, for the birthright to use which all Christendom envies the 
Spaniard, he is expelling from the country by debasing it more and more 
with his native Indian below standard. Finally, he is destroying the last 
bond which holds the peoples south of tlie United States together, their 
religion. L'nder Juarez, who faithfully merited his surname of El Indio, 
and his successor, Lerdo, the persecution of the Catholic Church has been 
successful in eradicating true religious feeling to an extent, which, before 
my last visit, I could hardly have believed possible. Among the ruling 
politicians in the north. I did not meet one man who, in conversation 
with me, did not proclaim himself superior to " Superstition."' The author- 
ized school books, in the miserable attempts at public schools, taught 
Huitzilopochtli (alias Mexitli),' Melantiuctli,- Tezcatzoacatl,-'' and the 
glories of Netzahual-coyotP and Cuahtemoc' 
These be thj-^ gods, O Israel ! 

There were old Spanish churches left, many of tliem not yet fallen to 
ruin, into >vhich occasionally glided a few women muffled in black shawls, 
with their little children. Then a proscribed man might skulk in, per- 
haps, through a little door under the altar, and don for the mass priestly 
vestments which he was not allowed by law to wear outside the church. 
But the building you would find did not belong to him, but to the State. 
He could not. nor could any religious corporation, own property as re- 
Gods— l. Of War. L'. Of Hell. ,?. I'lilquo. A. 'lV/co<an King, d. l-i;{(!. 5. Enn- 
my of Corte/, li . 152.'). 



13 

ligious societies, do in the United States. If the Spanish bells in Uie tower 
were not melted down, he had no right to ring them ; not to announce 
fair dayliglit to the sick-bed, not to bid an Angelus tell the laborer that it was 
noon, not to sound a Vesper to "regret the dying day." But in the very 
midst of his murmured masses, in the crisis of the elevation of the Host 
itself, he might be interrupted by ruffians rushing in to ring a peal of their 
own, upon the receipt of news of some murderous victory, real or pre- 
tended. 

In two skirmishes, so-called " battles, " whiols I was regaled wit.h, the 
church was the centre of the fight. In Monclova the women,, ran out of 
the chui'ch when the firing began, as they might with uS after sia'vico, 
from a gathering thunderstorm. This was Sunday, November \12t)'i ult., 
about noon. IST. B. — Remington (American) bullets whistled aboui; their 
ears. 

Hoc ab initio persuasum civibus dominos esse omnium rerum a,G n.oder- 
atores Deos ; eaque quse gerantur, eorum geri vi, ditione, ac n,a. .jinc. 
* 7;- ■» -A- His enim rebus imbutte mentes baud sane abh-ir> Dunf 
ab utili et vera sententia. It was an exotic — the Roman Religion — ar. im- 
ported article ; but it was the last bond left to tie a good many unh.ippy 
souls together. It is nearly worn through. Tlie last strands are parting. 
- In sliort, the way things , are going on, ten years ought to be a generous 
allowance tor Mexico to rehabilitate the worship of her indigenous Gods 
of ITell, and Pulque, and War, and the sanction of public human sacrifice. 



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